On This Side of Life
by Isodriel
Summary: Connor and Angel go to live temporarily with the Summers, and the whole LA/Sunnydale group ends up getting together, leading to more than just a few problems... (Chapter I uploaded)
1. Introduction: Breakfast Vignette

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**Buffy****: **_Breakfast at the Summers house is definitely not what it used to be. _

_I mean, with eight people living under the same roof and only one of them being completely human (Slayer, Slayer-in-training, witch, witch/something else, ex-Watcher, vampire, vampire/human and Olivia) you've got to expect some major weirdness. But this is way beyond what I imagined…_

~ ¤ ~

"Willow, pass the milk," Buffy asked tiredly, shaking out her hair with one hand. Willow, stifling a yawn, casually gestured at the milk carton and it hovered from her end of the table to Buffy's, spilling only slightly in the process. 

"Okay, who ate all the Cheerios?" Dawn held out the empty packet, miffed that someone would snatch away her favorite breakfast item. 

Connor grinned slyly and poked at the full bowl of Cheerios and milk in front of him. "Whoops," he said smugly, "I guess I got the last of it." Then he smiled sweetly at Dawn and made loud munching noises with his cereal. 

Dawn looked just about ready to attack him, but Buffy managed to console her with Grape Nuts to take the place of the lost Cheerios. Still, Dawn made sure to give Connor a "Boy, you'd better sleep with one eye open tonight" look before sitting down at the table. 

Angel watched them over the rim of his coffee cup, hiding an amused smile. Since they had arrived in Sunnydale, Connor had become increasingly comfortable with his surroundings – and although he and Dawn fought like cat and dog 24/7, Angel had an idea that his son was finally starting to fit in with the rest of the world. 

Buffy was watching Dawn and Connor as well, and she couldn't help thinking about the strangeness of it all – Angel and Connor had only been there for two and a half weeks, but it felt as if they'd always been around. Or at least, it felt like that around Connor. Around Angel, things were mainly just… 

_What? Strange? Embarrassing?  _

She didn't exactly know what to say around them – "I'm really sorry Cordy disappeared, but I'm glad it enabled you to come stay with us"? Or maybe "Hey, it's great that you decided to come live on the Hellmouth and all, but could you please just stay away from me"? It was like she wanted them there one moment, and then the next she wished they had never left LA. 

Aliyah and Olivia had been the last to arrive at the breakfast table, and they were having the same animated discussion about mythological heritage that they had been having all morning: Olivia insisted that descending from a magickal family didn't necessarily affect your abilities in witchcraft, while Aliyah maintained that if you descended from a family of magickal or mythological creatures, it was bound to affect your capabilities within the Craft. 

Giles was watching all this with a great deal of interest, and managed to slide a word in edgewise here and there: he tended to agree with both of them, but saying so might earn him a glare from his fiancé, so he wisely stuck to safe and steady facts. 

Once, to demonstrate a point, Aliyah jabbed her finger at an ornamental glass vase sitting on the counter and it exploded, blasting shards of glass everywhere. With another jab of her finger, the shards froze in mid-air before they could hurt anyone and suddenly flew back into place, smoothly re-forming the vase. 

"You could've done that even if you were a human witch," Olivia stated, after a moment of mildly shocked silence. "Take Willow, for example – her powers are incredible, and there's no sign of magickal heritage in her."

"Willow's special," Aliyah countered, "because she was born with a calling for witchcraft. Very few others have her skill." She turned to Willow and the two witches smiled at each other – then she nodded at Olivia in a definite "case closed" gesture. Olivia just let it rest from there. 

Angel suddenly frowned and looked down at his coffee. "Buffy?"

Buffy glanced up. "Mm?" 

"What's in this? Besides the obvious, I mean."

"Sheep's blood," Buffy answered, in a perfectly level tone. "To keep your energy up."

"Oh." Angel didn't really have anything to say to that. 

Connor looked startled. "You keep sheep's blood?"

Dawn shrugged. "Yeah, from time to time." Her eyes were glittering. "We get it free from the butcher's place on Marjorie Street. You know, for rituals and demon-killings and stuff… And hey, it works as a beverage too. We even put it in milk sometimes – it adds vitamins," she finished, in a very Martha Stewart-like voice.  

Connor pushed his soggy milk and cereal away from him, totally grossed out. 

_Oh yeah,_ Buffy couldn't help thinking, _things are never gonna be the same around here._

~ ¤ ~


	2. Chapter I: Renovation Day

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**Author's Note: **

In answer to Tariq's review, I just want to say that Olivia is actually an official Buffy the Vampire Slayer character: she came on as Giles' old girlfriend, and they eventually ended up getting back together. The most detail I can give you on Olivia is that she's African, dark skin, black hair, and apparently British by birth – but that's as much as I personally know: the rest I just had to build up from there (not exactly the best way to introduce a character, but there's not much I can do about that.) 

As for Aaliyah, she's purely original, so I there's no end to the detail I could give on her; but I'll leave that to actually go into the chapter, and not waste space by putting it here. All I'll say regarding appearance is that she's Asian-featured, slightly almond-shaped eyes, dark hair, slender build and golden-shaded skin. 

Eledwhen, I considered changing Aaliyah's name after you reviewed, but I just can't see her as anything else just now: but just to erase any confusion between my Aaliyah and the deceased R&B artist, I'll spell it "Aliyah". And, while they are two separate beings altogether, my Aliyah does sort of resemble the way Aaliyah (the R&B artist) used to look, so it doesn't really matter whose mental image you get. And I like unusual names – a name always tells you something about a person or character, and so I always like to think that a unique name suggests a unique personality.

And when it comes to bringing Cordy back in, I'm already waaay ahead of you, Aset. But you'll have to hold on a while: there's a lot I want to put in before Cordy's grand entrance. 

Ivy, of course Xander is going to be in this! Spike is coming in a little later (I have a lot to sort out with his new soul), but Tara (just in case you didn't already know) died at the end of season six, so she definitely won't be back. I am considering bringing back Oz, though, since I'm a big Oz (and Seth Green) fan.

I know this fic is written in a different tone from most of my other fics, but I just felt like writing something fun and relatively plotless for once. But I'll try to two-tone this fic, going from the lighter aspects to the deeper thoughts of the characters, just to make it more interesting.

And I know these chapters are very short compared to my usual chapters, and I'll have to apologize for that; but the shorter they are, the more frequently they get posted, after all. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**Chapter I: **

**_Renovation Day_**

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**Angel:** _I'm not really sure what I was expecting, coming back to Sunnydale. I guess I just wanted to get the hell out of LA as fast as possible, and the Hellmouth seemed the best place to go. That sounds strange, but it's true – where else could you find so many lowlife demons in one place?  _

_I wasn't really coming to see Buffy. It just… turned out that way, somehow. I prepared for it; I told myself that if she insisted, we'd stay a week, and then we'd rent a place somewhere and we wouldn't bother her any longer. _

_But then she came up with the idea of renovating the old mansion, and I just couldn't help agreeing to it. _

_And, well, it turned out to be quite an experience… _

~ ¤ ~

"What is _that_?" Angel couldn't help the look of horror on his face when he saw the ugly, pasty teal-colored sample tile Anya was holding out. 

The whole group, including Xander and Anya, were crowded into the Summers' living room, where they were practically fighting over which building materials would look the best where: they had all been to see the mansion the day before, and Xander had promised to supply the materials needed for the renovation, free of charge. "Hey, after all," he had pointed out, "you really – and I do mean _really _– need it."

"It's teal," Anya answered Angel promptly. "For the dining room."

"You want _teal _for the dining room?" Buffy said, seeing the revulsion on Angel's face. "Anya, I don't think that's is a very good choice."

"Well, okay," Anya sighed, putting away the teal tile. Then her face lit up and she picked up a sheaf of sample wallpaper, displaying it proudly. "What about this one? It would be perfect."

Connor actually had to give out a snort of laughter – which Dawn promptly smacked him on the arm for – and Buffy looked just about ready to faint. What Anya was holding out was a vibrant, neon-like lime green paper, so bright it hurt the eyes to look at it. 

"Oh, yes," Xander said crisply, "lime is _just _the color for a two-hundred fifty-year old vampire's dining room, don't you think?" 

Even Anya couldn't ignore the sarcasm in his voice, and she glared at her ex-fiancé. "So what do you suggest?" she snapped, "_black_ wallpaper?"   

"At least then it wouldn't look like a circus ring," Xander retorted. 

"Are they always like this?" Connor stage-whispered to Dawn. 

"Yeah, most of the time," Dawn answered, in the same stage-whisper tone. She grinned. "You should just see them fight over the remote control." 

~ ¤ ~

Finally, after quite a few hours of arguing, compromising, threatening and pleading, the materials were decided on: the floors would be carpeted in dark crimson, deep cream, elegant slate-gray and midnight-blue, and the walls were to match: subtle clarets and crimsons, warm peaches and oranges, deep, inky blues and silvery grays. The materials were gorgeous, thanks to Xander's expertise and numerous contacts in the building and interior design business, and everyone wanted to lend a hand.  

Willow and Aliyah were especially eager to try out a few new color-appliance magicks they had been practicing on – so far, they had managed to magick the wallpaper in their room to changing color whenever the door was opened, and the effect was quite incredible.

When it was finally time to leave the group split in half, with Xander driving one group and Giles driving the other: Angel's old mansion wasn't far away, a bare twenty-minute drive. 

The mansion looked just like it had when Angel left: tall and stately, but dusty and worn-down with age. The garden outside was overgrown with weeds and wild vines, and the windows were dark and boarded up, revealing nothing of the inside building. The sun had just started to set, and the effect of the dusky orange and purple sky behind the dark mansion was quite striking. 

Giles couldn't help feeling nervous around the place – he hadn't been there ever since Angelus had kidnapped him, and the memory of it still haunted him by night. 

Olivia didn't know the details of Giles' kidnapping – or the ensuing torture – but she squeezed his hand reassuringly once she saw the tension in his face. "Don't worry about it. We'll be in and out in no time," she comforted. 

Giles just smiled faintly. "Thanks, Livvie."

The renovation work started almost instantly, beginning with cleaning: the Scooby Gang had come armed with furniture-polish, window-spray, brooms, mops, air fresheners, a dustbuster, a feather-duster and several all-purpose stain removers. 

Anya took care of the dusting, waving the feather-duster around like some sort of baton and breaking more things than she cleaned; Connor and Dawn got window-cleaning duty, which they did well except for the fact that they splattered each other in a constant accidentally-on-purpose manner; Buffy wielded the broom like a lethal weapon, ruthlessly getting rid of all dust and dirt on the floor, and Olivia was quick to follow with a mop; Xander polished furniture like a pro, Angel moved around the heavier furniture so that they could be cleaned under and Aliyah and Willow took turns magickally wiping off and sanding the ceiling and walls in preparation for painting: the two would even send pieces of sandpaper flying and then make them skate across the ceiling, just for the fun of it. 

"Um, Angel?" Olivia suddenly called uncertainly, her voice strangely high-pitched. 

"Yes?" Angel glanced up from the portrait he was straightening. 

"When… when you were here last, were there any… rats?"

Angel frowned slightly, trying to remember. "Rats? In here? Yeah, maybe… I'm not really sure. Why?"

"There's some sort of weird squeaking noise over coming from your fireplace." Olivia looked terrified; she had a mortal fear of rats, and just the thought of one clogged up her breathing. 

She moved away hurriedly from the fireplace, staring at the place where the squeaking was coming from. "Oh god, something's scratching at the grate!" Olivia practically threw herself into Giles' arms, shivering. 

Xander arched an eyebrow, listening intently. "It sounds too loud to be just one rat."

"Oh, yeah, Xand, that's bound to make us feel better about it," Buffy shot at him. Then she moved forward and inspected the fireplace. "I don't see anything in here," she declared. 

"Well, _something_ is certainly in there," Giles noted. "The problem is, how do we get rid of it?" He was actually quite amused by Olivia's sudden terror, but wouldn't have shown it to her for all the world. 

"Use a broom," Connor suggested. "One good thwap, and you've got 'em squished for good."

"That's gross!" Dawn squealed, shuddering at the mental image.   

"Yeah, but it would be effective," Buffy said, still peering into the sooty fireplace, where the squeaking noises were getting louder. 

"There has to be some more humane way," Aliyah said, genuinely worried. "We can't just kill it."

Willow nodded. "I agree - it's just a poor defenseless rat. It would be cruel to just… _squish_ _it_."

"Yeah, but does anybody have any other suggestions?" Xander asked, eyeing the grate. "I mean, for all we know, they might be giant monster rats waiting to attack us. I think we should go with Buffy on this one."

Aliyah smiled, considering Xander's statement. "Point taken – weirder stuff has happened to you guys, after all." Willow had told her a lot about her years as a Slayerette, and the weirdness it entailed. "But just let me and Willow magick them out – that way, whatever it is can't hurt us."

"I don't care what you do to them, just get them out of here!" Olivia exclaimed, taking a nervous step back from the fireplace. The squeaking had turned to scuffling, scratching and high-pitched, whining wails, and the hairs on the back of Olivia's neck were literally standing up.

Willow and Aliyah nodded, raising their hands. _"Hecate,"_ they intoned, _"hear our cries. Bring forth your creature to us; let it be seen by all eyes. Whether feather or fur, chained or free; as is our will, so mote it be!"_

The fireplace shuddered and shook, and suddenly two small furry things, surrounded by pale blue auras, flew out and floated towards the witches, hovering into their outstretched hands. 

As soon as they saw what it was, the girls grinned. They had their backs to the others, so no one saw the creatures - but they could all clearly hear the loud, plaintive meowing. 

"Cats?" Buffy was stunned. "We made all this deal about a couple of _cats_?"

"Nooo," Willow said slowly, turning around, "we made all this deal about a couple of _kittens_. Look, aren't they adorable?" 

Everyone was quick to agree that they were indeed adorable, despite the soot that covered them. They were rather small kittens, both with large, shining eyes and silky – if somewhat tousled – fur. One had black fur and vivid, pale green eyes, and the other had tiger-striped ginger fur and ocean-blue eyes. Both had pale pink noses and tongues, and the way blinked around in mild confusion was especially charming. 

"Oh, they are _so _cute!" Dawn cried delightedly, reaching out to rub the black kitten behind the ears. The kitten growled faintly and pawed at Aliyah's blouse, where it had firmly hooked its little claws. The ginger one did the same to Willow when Xander tried to stroke it, and purred pleasantly when Willow cradled it in her arms. 

"I think they've gotten attached to you," Olivia said, happy to see kittens instead of rats but still keeping her distance. She was mildly allergic to cat fur, and preferred to keep away from it. 

"They've probably imprinted on us," Aliyah agreed, "but not exclusively." The ginger kitten did not seem to mind her, just as the black one did not seem to mind Willow. "I think their mother might be dead, and we're supposed to take her place."

Willow laughed. "I've always wanted to be a mother, and here's my chance."

"I think they're beautiful," Dawn sighed enviously. "I wish there had been three of them, though."

After a quick inspection by Angel – whose numerous experiences ranged to raising cats – the black cat was declared to be male, and the ginger female. 

"What are you going to call them?" Xander asked, interested. 

Willow shrugged. "I don't know. Something matching." She glanced at Aliyah. "What do you think? Aphrodite and Apollo? Caesar and Cleopatra? Merlin and Morgana?"

"I think we want something simpler. Jazz and Jewel, maybe?" Aliyah suggested. 

"You'll think of something," Buffy said. "But are you sure we should take them?"

"Yes," Willow said, stroking the kitten in her arms. "We couldn't leave them here on a clear conscience."   

"Well, personally, I don't mind," Dawn said happily. "I mean, the more we are, the merrier it gets, right?"

Connor shook his head, sighing. "Actually, the more we are, the _weirder _it gets."

~ ¤ ~

**Author's Note: **I think I'll end it right about there, but before I log off, I'd just like to ask for suggestions – what should I name the kittens? Like Willow said, I'd like something matching, but  fairly simple. It's not all that important, I know, but I'd still like some ideas from you.

Anyways, the next chapter should be coming up soon. 


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